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Fri, 24 Apr 2015 10:33:58 +0200Fri, 24 Apr 2015 10:33:58 +0200The genome of the basal agaricomycete Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous provides insights into the organization of its acetyl-CoA derived pathways and the evolution of Agaricomycotinahttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/37377
Background: Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous is a basal agaricomycete with uncertain taxonomic placement, known for its unique ability to produce astaxanthin, a carotenoid with antioxidant properties. It was the aim of this study to elucidate the organization of its CoA-derived pathways and to use the genomic information of X. dendrorhous for a phylogenomic investigation of the Basidiomycota.
Results: The genome assembly of a haploid strain of Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous revealed a genome of 19.50 Megabases with 6385 protein coding genes. Phylogenetic analyses were conducted including 48 fungal genomes. These revealed Ustilaginomycotina and Agaricomycotina as sister groups. In the latter a well-supported sister-group relationship of two major orders, Polyporales and Russulales, was inferred. Wallemia occupies a basal position within the Agaricomycotina and X. dendrorhous represents the basal lineage of the Tremellomycetes, highlighting that the typical tremelloid parenthesomes have either convergently evolved in Wallemia and the Tremellomycetes, or were lost in the Cystofilobasidiales lineage. A detailed characterization of the CoA-related pathways was done and all genes for fatty acid, sterol and carotenoid synthesis have been assigned.
Conclusions: The current study ascertains that Wallemia with tremelloid parenthesomes is the most basal agaricomycotinous lineage and that Cystofilobasidiales without tremelloid parenthesomes are deeply rooted within Tremellomycetes, suggesting that parenthesomes at septal pores might be the core synapomorphy for the Agaricomycotina. Apart from evolutionary insights the genome sequence of X. dendrorhous will facilitate genetic pathway engineering for optimized astaxanthin or oxidative alcohol production.Rahul Sharma; Sören Gassel; Sabine Steiger; Xiaojuan Xia; Robert Bauer; Gerhard Sandmann; Marco Thinesarticlehttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/37377Fri, 24 Apr 2015 10:33:58 +0200Seed Transmission of Pseudoperonospora cubensishttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/35301
Pseudoperonospora cubensis, an obligate biotrophic oomycete causing devastating foliar disease in species of the Cucurbitaceae family, was never reported in seeds or transmitted by seeds. We now show that P. cubensis occurs in fruits and seeds of downy mildew-infected plants but not in fruits or seeds of healthy plants. About 6.7% of the fruits collected during 2012–2014 have developed downy mildew when homogenized and inoculated onto detached leaves and 0.9% of the seeds collected developed downy mildew when grown to the seedling stage. This is the first report showing that P. cubensis has become seed-transmitted in cucurbits. Species-specific PCR assays showed that P. cubensis occurs in ovaries, fruit seed cavity and seed embryos of cucurbits. We propose that international trade of fruits or seeds of cucurbits might be associated with the recent global change in the population structure of P. cubensis.Yigal Cohen; Avia E. Rubin; Mariana Galperin; Sebastian Ploch; Fabian Runge; Marco Thinesarticlehttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/35301Sat, 08 Nov 2014 11:19:37 +0100An Illumina metabarcoding pipeline for fungihttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/34801
High-throughput metabarcoding studies on fungi and other eukaryotic microorganisms are rapidly becoming more frequent and more complex, requiring researchers to handle ever increasing amounts of raw sequence data. Here, we provide a flexible pipeline for pruning and analyzing fungal barcode (ITS rDNA) data generated as paired-end reads on Illumina MiSeq sequencers. The pipeline presented includes specific steps fine-tuned for ITS, that are mostly missing from pipelines developed for prokaryotes. It (1) employs state of the art programs and follows best practices in fungal high-throughput metabarcoding; (2) consists of modules and scripts easily modifiable by the user to ensure maximum flexibility with regard to specific needs of a project or future methodological developments; and (3) is straightforward to use, also in classroom settings. We provide detailed descriptions and revision techniques for each step, thus giving the user maximum control over data treatment and avoiding a black-box approach. Employing this pipeline will improve and speed up the tedious and error-prone process of cleaning fungal Illumina metabarcoding data.Miklós Bálint; Philipp-André Schmidt; Rahul Sharma; Marco Thines; Imke Schmittarticlehttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/34801Fri, 08 Aug 2014 08:34:40 +0200Gene loss rather than gene gain is associated with a host jump from monocots to dicots in the smut fungus Melanopsichium pennsylvanicumhttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/34203
Smut fungi are well-suited to investigate the ecology and evolution of plant pathogens, as they are strictly biotrophic, yet cultivable on media. Here we report the genome sequence of Melanopsichium pennsylvanicum, closely related to Ustilago maydis and other Poaceae-infecting smuts, but parasitic to a dicot plant. To explore the evolutionary patterns resulting from host adaptation after this huge host jump, the genome of M. pennsylvanicum was sequenced and compared to the genomes of Ustilago maydis, Sporisorium reilianum, and Ustilago hordei. While all four genomes had a similar completeness in CEGMA analyses, gene absence was highest in M. pennsylvanicum, and most pronounced in putative secreted proteins, which are often considered as effector candidates. In contrast, the amount of private genes was similar among the species, highlighting that gene loss rather than gene gain is the hallmark of adaptation after the host jump to the dicot host. Our analyses revealed a trend of putative effectors to be next to another putative effector, but the majority of these are not in clusters and thus the focus on pathogenicity clusters might not be appropriate for all smut genomes. Positive selection studies revealed that M. pennsylvanicum has the highest number and proportion of genes under positive selection. In general, putative effectors showed a higher proportion of positively selected genes than non-effector candidates. The 248 putative secreted effectors found in all four smut genomes might constitute a core set needed for pathogenicity, while those 92 that are found in all grass-parasitic smuts, but have no ortholog in M. pennsylvanicum might constitute a set of effectors important for successful colonization of grass hosts.Rahul Sharma; Bagdevi Mishra; Fabian Runge; Marco Thinesarticlehttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/34203Wed, 30 Jul 2014 15:34:59 +0200Mining herbaria for plant pathogen genomes: back to the futurehttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/33458
Kentaro Yoshida; Hernán A. Burbano; Johannes Krause; Marco Thines; Detlef Weigel; Sophien Kamounarticlehttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/33458Wed, 07 May 2014 11:26:29 +0200Which morphological characteristics are most influenced by the host matrix in downy mildews? : A case study in Pseudoperonospora cubensishttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/27477
Before the advent of molecular phylogenetics, species concepts in the downy mildews, an economically important group of obligate biotrophic oomycete pathogens, have mostly been based upon host range and morphology. While molecular phylogenetic studies have confirmed a narrow host range for many downy mildew species, others, like Pseudoperonospora cubensis affect even different genera. Although often morphological differences were found for new, phylogenetically distinct species, uncertainty prevails regarding their host ranges, especially regarding related plants that have been reported as downy mildew hosts, but were not included in the phylogenetic studies. In these cases, the basis for deciding if the divergence in some morphological characters can be deemed sufficient for designation as separate species is uncertain, as observed morphological divergence could be due to different host matrices colonised. The broad host range of P. cubensis (ca. 60 host species) renders this pathogen an ideal model organism for the investigation of morphological variations in relation to the host matrix and to evaluate which characteristics are best indicators for conspecificity or distinctiveness. On the basis of twelve morphological characterisitcs and a set of twelve cucurbits from five different Cucurbitaceae tribes, including the two species, Cyclanthera pedata and Thladiantha dubia, hitherto not reported as hosts of P. cubensis, a significant influence of the host matrix on pathogen morphology was found. Given the high intraspecific variation of some characteristics, also their plasticity has to be taken into account. The implications for morphological species determination and the confidence limits of morphological characteristics are discussed. For species delimitations in Pseudoperonospora it is shown that the ratio of the height of the first ramification to the sporangiophore length, ratio of the longer to the shorter ultimate branchlet, and especially the length and width of sporangia, as well as, with some reservations, their ratio, are the most suitable characteristics for species delimitation.Fabian Runge; Beninweck Ndambi; Marco Thinesarticlehttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/27477Fri, 16 Nov 2012 13:48:07 +0100Genome sequence of the necrotrophic plant pathogen Pythium ultimum reveals original pathogenicity mechanisms and effector repertoirehttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/7915
Background: Pythium ultimum (P. ultimum) is a ubiquitous oomycete plant pathogen responsible for a variety of diseases on a broad range of crop and ornamental species. Results: The P. ultimum genome (42.8 Mb) encodes 15,290 genes and has extensive sequence similarity and synteny with related Phytophthora species, including the potato blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans. Whole transcriptome sequencing revealed expression of 86% of genes, with detectable differential expression of suites of genes under abiotic stress and in the presence of a host. The predicted proteome includes a large repertoire of proteins involved in plant pathogen interactions although surprisingly, the P. ultimum genome does not encode any classical RXLR effectors and relatively few Crinkler genes in comparison to related phytopathogenic oomycetes. A lower number of enzymes involved in carbohydrate metabolism were present compared to Phytophthora species, with the notable absence of cutinases, suggesting a significant difference in virulence mechanisms between P. ultimum and more host specific oomycete species. Although we observed a high degree of orthology with Phytophthora genomes, there were novel features of the P. ultimum proteome including an expansion of genes involved in proteolysis and genes unique to Pythium. We identified a small gene family of cadherins, proteins involved in cell adhesion, the first report in a genome outside the metazoans. Conclusions: Access to the P. ultimum genome has revealed not only core pathogenic mechanisms within the oomycetes but also lineage specific genes associated with the alternative virulence and lifestyles found within the pythiaceous lineages compared to the Peronosporaceae.C. André Lévesque; Henk Brouwer; Liliana Cano; John P. Hamilton; Carson Holt; Edgar Huitema; Sylvain Raffaele; Gregg P. Robideau; Marco Thines; Joe Win; Marcelo M. Zerillo; Gordon W. Beakes; Jeffrey L. Boore; Dana Busam; Bernard Dumas; Steve Ferriera; Susan I. Fuerstenberg; Claire M. M. Gachon; Elodie Gaulin; Francine Govers; Laura Grenville-Briggs; Neil Horner; Jessica Hostetler; Rays H. Y. Jiang; Justin Johnson; Theerapong Krajaejun; Haining Lin; Harold J. G. Meijer; Barry Moore; Paul Morris; Vipaporn Phuntmart; Daniela Puiu; Jyoti Shetty; Jason E. Stajich; Sucheta Tripathy; Stephan Wawra; Pieter van West; Brett R. Whitty; Pedro M. Coutinho; Bernard Henrissat; Frank Martin; Paul D. Thomas; Brett M. Tyler; Ronald P. De Vries; Sophien Kamoun; Mark Yandell; Ned Tisserat; C. Robin Buellarticlehttp://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/7915Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:18:56 +0200